


Twenty-Five Against the Dealer

by counterheist



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, F/F, F/M, Genderbending, M/M, Polyamory, a little bit of gratuitous Italian, star wars?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-15
Updated: 2012-04-15
Packaged: 2017-11-29 11:30:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/686468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/counterheist/pseuds/counterheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What is life without a little bit of chaos?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twenty-Five Against the Dealer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cutthroatpixie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutthroatpixie/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Six in One](https://archiveofourown.org/works/628000) by [cutthroatpixie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutthroatpixie/pseuds/cutthroatpixie). 



> 25 snippets based on some headcanons [cutthroatpixie](http://cutthroatpixie.tumblr.com/) requested on tumblr for her [Six In One verse](http://cutthroatpixie.livejournal.com/389357.html), wherein a square of Romanos and Spains exist and have shenanigans together.

**Once they tried to take a sexy shower together. _All_ together. Antonio almost got a concussion because of the shower spout, Antonia got a black eye after Lovina instinctively punched her after Antonia slipped on some soap and faceplanted in Lovina’s boobs. It all ended when Romano stepped on Lovina’s razor and they had to all get out and dry off his foot and bandage it. And listen to his bitching. Antonio did the bandaging, despite the protoconcussion, and Antonia got them all a round of painkillers. Lovina sulked before getting into a shouting match with Romano because it wasn’t her fault that he was so fucking clumsy and midway through that he got a boner because they were all still dripping and naked. And because Lovina likes to lean down over him when she shouts at him and boobs.**

In between mutterings of “fuckhead” and “bitches” and “the reason we have a fucking shower rack is so you put your fucking soap and fucking butcher’s knife on it and these things don’t happen, I am not clumsy,” Romano realizes, for good, that he is fucked. He’s been fucked for years, but it isn’t until this moment that he realizes that he’s really and truly fucked for life.

Antonio is squatting in front of him, heels up from the floor and eyebrows knit, and when he wraps the bandage a little bit tighter around Romano’s foot, he licks his bottom lip. He’s going to kiss the arch of Romano’s foot when he’s done, too. To make it better; Antonio always did hang on to stupid traditions like that longer than anyone else Romano’s ever known. He’s going to, and… he does.

“To make it better,” Antonio looks up through his eyelashes, “Roma, so you can stop squirming.”

Asshole.

And now Antonia has to have her turn and who would have ever guessed when they were younger, little, playing house, that Antonia would ever have to wait? Not Romano, that’s for sure. Probably not Antonia either, for all that she was the first one to broach the idea to Romano. “Toni he always squirms,” the bandage is pale yellow with green and blue stars and she gives it a long slow lick, “otherwise he wouldn’t be Romano!”

Antonia’s logic is not like other people’s logic. Romano’s life is not like other people’s lives.

Then there is Lovina, standing in front of Romano, harping on about something or other. Romano had taken her to task for a good few minutes after they had all shoved the shower’s glass doors open. After the panic had faded. The cuts may be shallow but there had been a lot of blood, okay? And Romano hates missing an opportunity to tell Lovina that she’s wrong.

( _She gets all red, right, her whole body, and it’s not the steam. Romano watches it travel down from her face, and—_ )

“You _are_ clumsy, you’re the clumsiest person I’ve ever fucking met—”

She’s still doing it.

“… don’t even know how you can be this…”

That thing.

“…might as well shove your…”

Where she talks.

It kills him to say it, so he doesn’t, but Romano doesn’t even mind the thing where she talks anymore, mostly because he loves her, but also because when she shouts her tits bounce like a gift from God. There is probably a lost book of the Bible dedicated to Lovina Vella’s angry bouncing breasts. The Tit Sea Scrolls. Now that she’s dripping wet, fresh out of the shower, there is nothing to restrict them. A droplet of water flies off the left one to land on Romano’s face, and Romano can feel himself give a standing ovation.

What the fuck else is he supposed to do when she stands so close to nag at him?

If Antonio and Antonia weren’t licking his fucking foot right now, Romano would cross his legs, that’s what. He might be getting hard, fast, again, but Lovina doesn’t need to know that, because if she knows she’ll know why. Romano hates it when Lovina thinks she’s won, and she will, and she’ll slap him like a bitch as soon as she comes down from her cloud and looks _down_.

Or maybe that’s not so bad after all. Romano can wait. Maybe by then the other two will stop playing around and get back to what they started. The water’s still running, which is wasteful in one sense, but the steam in the air is useful in another. It makes Lovina short of breath. It makes Antonia wipe the sweat away from her eyes. It makes Antonio’s arms shine. It makes Romano clench his fists.

Romano is in love with three people and he is fucked.

 

**When they go dancing dudes assume that it’s okay to cut in, because Antonio and Romano freely change partners whenever they feel like it. Antonia does too. Lovina tends not to, as much, because as soon as she gets a new partner she likes to show them up and not be the one to back down.**

They are in the club that is Antonia’s favorite, but not Lovina’s, and definitely not Romano’s, when a stranger decides that Antonia needs a new partner. He puts his hand on Antonio’s wrist first, then his palm on Antonia’s back. He’s very sure of himself, this man, wearing a loose blue shirt and a looser smile. Maybe he thinks Antonia’s loose too, what with the height of her skirt or the way she’d been dancing so close with Romano earlier, and the way she’s dancing just as close with Antonio now. The stranger tries to break Antonio’s grip, and asks, “Do you mind?”

Across the room, Lovina taps Romano on his shoulder and they both stop. Another couple crashes into Lovina from behind. On a normal day this transgression would merit a few choice gestures and maybe some skirt-flipping, but today it’s nothing. The assholes don’t even get a glance while Lovina, and then Romano, chew them out. There are better things to see. It’s been a while since Antonio’s gotten upset, and although Lovina and Romano don’t have popcorn they have the music and that’s almost as good. Lovina wraps her arms around Romano’s middle, puts her head on his shoulder and grins. She and he have always loved a good show.

 

**Cutting in is not okay.**

Because Romano knows a guy, who knows the owner’s favorite cousin, they don’t get thrown out of the club. Still, it’s a close thing and the thrall of the dance is gone for them and for everyone in the room. It doesn’t help that the bouncers have to clear people away from a square of the dance floor so the janitor can get in to mop up the blood. There isn’t much of it, really, but the man in blue had been wearing a really fancy ring. When Antonio had twisted his arm back like that it must have scratched the man’s temple. Something that bleeds shallow. Lovina didn’t see exactly what happened and Romano says he didn’t either when she asks. Then again, he’s pretty busy talking in hushed tones to the guy he knows, so.

Lovina will get it out of him later.

She knows she won’t get it out of Antonia, who had to be shooed away from her spot and away from the man in blue’s friends. Antonia, who is frowning and asking those friends lightly if they would like to repeat what they have just said. Lovina also knows she won’t get it out of Antonio. Neutral is just about the worst facial expression for Antonio Fernandez Carriedo. He’s not made for it.

Before he’s really done clearing things up, or bribing someone, or flattering, Lovina grabs Romano’s arm and takes long high-heeled steps towards the forbidden corner of the room. The bouncers glare at her, and she glares right the fuck back, and then she makes them let her through. ‘Everyone is making more of a fuss than this stupid thing deserves,’ Lovina thinks. That wasn’t a fight. None of these people have ever seen a real fight.

Lovina has seen some real fights. So has Antonio.

She adjusts Antonio’s collar for him, flattening down the edges, and then scoops up one of his cufflinks from the floor.

“You should treat gifts better than this, stupid,” she growls out. They weren’t real diamonds but they _were_ a present, and from Lovina herself no less.

Antonio takes the backing from her and gestures for her to help him attach it. When she’s close enough for him to dip his mouth to her ear he does so. “Thanks,” he whispers, and Lovina lets her tension flow. As if on cue, so does the rest of the room. Or maybe that’s due to the change in song. It’s some shitty American tune, the same inane chorus repeated ten thousand times, so Lovina has no idea why. It doesn’t matter.

To make the evening up to him, because even though he kind of punched a guy he probably didn’t mean it and even if he did Lovina and Antonia and Romano don’t care, they move away from the crowd and fuck Antonio in the VIP bathroom. It has red velvet walls and a black marble countertop that Romano dumps Antonio onto as soon as the four of them make it past the door. Antonia shoves one of the waiting chairs underneath the door’s handle and clicks her tongue.

“So rude,” she says, “that they don’t even have locks. There’s a couch and a condom machine in here, they have to know what this room is f—ohhh Lovi, look, Paradise, it’s called Paradise! I want that one.” She starts digging in her purse for coins. She does not have an actual purse, though, so her hand ends up trawling down the front of her dress.

Lovina rolls her eyes and gives the leather ottoman another kick towards the door. No need not to be cautious. The man in blue might not have known that some ( _a fucking lot, dammit_ ) of Antonia’s jugs were cash padding, but he didn’t look thrilled to end up on the floor after asking her to dance. No. After asking Antonio if he would allow her to dance. No wonder Antonio decked him; Lovina would have decked him too.

“Don’t touch that thing. You’ll catch a disease.”

From the counter, Romano nods in agreement. Or maybe he’s just licking Antonio’s neck; Lovina can’t tell this either.

 

**When Lovina was pregnant sometimes she would just start crying to get the rest of them to do things for her. Sometimes she still does. She has trained Romano to get her ice cream whenever she sniffles and looks forlorn, and he calls her a bitch for it because he never remembers that the kid’s already two until he’s sprinting back from the store.**

“I,” huff, “hate you,” puff, “so fucking much.”

“I said _strawberry_ , dumbass.”

 

**Antonio likes to bang in front of mirrors and the other three don’t really get it but whatever. They have a lot of mirrors.**

Antonio isn’t vain, or, Antonio isn’t as vain as Romano.

Antonio doesn’t spend hours picking out what he’s going to wear, and he certainly doesn’t spend hours making his hair fall _juuuust_ right. He likes to look good, sure, but he’s got a knack for that. And once he’s done, he’ s done. He doesn’t have to stare at himself extra.

It would be a lot easier if the rest of them remembered that when Antonio props the first mirror up against their bedroom wall. It’s not that Antonio likes looking at himself; it’s that he likes looking at _them_. Antonio likes losing the edges, where Romano begins and Lovina ends, and which arm is Antonia’s, and just how many of himself there are. Vanity doesn’t have anything to do with the reason why Antonio continues to build his collection of mirrors on the far side of their bedroom wall.

 

**Once when Romano got drunk he wore a pair of Antonia’s panties for the rest of them. They never let him live it down.**

Romano maintains that they had all been drinking, but he had been the only one drinking any hard stuff so of course his judgment would have been the most impaired. The rest of them had taken advantage of him, and his trust, and his drunken innocence. Romano maintains that he was so intoxicated that he had no idea what he was doing at all, and because they hadn’t had the foresight ( _or the coordination_ ) to take pictures of the dance he did, the dance didn’t happen.

No dance.

No pics.

It didn’t happen.

 

**He thought he looked really good in them, okay? they matched his shirt. He saw all those dilated pupils and crossed legs fuck you all, fuck you, and fuck your mo——- okay no, he knows all your mothers now and they like him better than they like you fuckers so _fuck off_.**

Lovina and he had just graduated two weeks earlier, and a two week anniversary of freedom was as good a reason as any to break out the wine.

Then they had broken out the brandy.

Or, as Romano likes to tell people, _Romano_ had broken out the brandy because the rest of them are lightweights. Antonia thinks Romano is ridiculous for thinking anybody’s going to buy that, but he gets so flustered whenever she even mentions her panties now that she’ll let his protests slide.

Flustered beyond the natural embarrassment at hearing Antonia talk about her underwear in public, even; he gets so red that sometimes Antonia wonders if he’ll ever be able to get it up again because all the blood has rushed to his face. Can blood get stuck there? Don’t people tease about the other way around happening? So why doesn’t anyone tease about the cheeks? Maybe it’s because the cheeks really happens and Romano is in danger of never being able to have sex again and he’s only survived this far out of luck and he knows it and when he tells them not to tease him he’s really asking them not to accidentally kill him and Antonia really doesn’t want to kill Romano because she loves him!

He had been right, though, when he had been staggering around on the tabletop, hands flailing in the air and legs akimbo. His penis hadn’t taken to the silky confinement well, but Antonia had decided that that look really worked for Romano anyway. Really. The way the head had peeked over the edge of the pink elastic band… Antonia had definitely crossed her legs then, although it didn’t make much of a difference since her skirt had ridden up all the way to her waist when she had taken her panties off to begin with. It was… don’t people say it’s the thought that counts? If Romano gets to say that he was the only wasted one, then Antonia gets to say that crossing her naked legs made a difference.

Then she had wondered, through her cloudy mind, if Romano would let her draw a smiley face on it. His penis. Or a grumpy face. Antonia always imagines that Romano’s penis has a grumpy face. With a tiny little frown! If penises could have faces. Which they can’t. But if they could, Romano’s would always be frowning, and sometimes Antonia brings this up in discussions with Romano’s penis itself.

Romano always tries to stop these conversations prematurely, which means Antonia has to be right, because the truth is out there and Romano takes a suspiciously long time in the bathroom by himself. And even if every time she’s walked in on him he’s really been pissing or fixing his hair just like he said he was going to be,

( _“Holy—did they never teach you to knock?! Fucking hell, Antonia! I can’t—Stop watching—Get out!”_ )

Antonia knows there has to be something else going on.

 

**That night was also the first time Antonio ever did a strip tease on purpose. Antonio had even more to drink than Romano. The only reason Antonio was not the one wearing the panties was because he’d put the panties onto Romano himself. With his teeth. It’s hard to get panties over a boner.**

The satin and lace come flying right around the time Antonio is peeling off his shirt. At first he thinks that maybe Lovina has jumped the gun a little; she doesn’t go in for trades where she’s not getting more out of the deal than her partner. But when the panties slip and slide away from Antonio’s head, he realizes that Antonia’s the one giggling on the sofa, arm still outstretched. Antonia’s the one disrobed and disheveled, and Lovina’s the one still gauging him. Still judging. Probably still waiting for his pants to come off.

Antonio knows he looks good.

He’s not the kind of person to dwell on that, usually, or to make the people around him dwell on it either. But he feels good tonight, really good, and he wants the rest of them to feel good too, and the look in Lovina’s eyes is encouraging. Really encouraging. Then Antonio notices Romano, and the look in Romano’s eyes, which is a lot less appraising, a lot less focused, and a lot more… wow.

Wow.

A plan begins to form in Antonio’s muddled mind. It’s a good plan.

Really good.

 

**Hard.**

Lovina doesn’t really know what’s going on, because fuck this shit she’s had half a bottle of Rioja and she’s not stopping now, but. But, but, but. But. But she has a front row seat for what’s looking a lot like some supreme live porn and fuck if she doesn’t ever love her _fucking_ hot life. Fuck. Yeah, yeah, fuck this shit is fucking amazing. Fuck. Fuck why is Antonio stopping, why, why what is this? What? Is? This? This is not on Lovina’s approved list of things that. That Lovina has approved. Yeah. _Yeah_.

Later, while Romano maintains that he was the only really intoxicated one, and Antonia maintains she had good intentions, and Antonio maintains he wasn’t actually trying to give Romano a sloppy blowjob he was just trying to spread the lacey joy, Lovina will maintain that she just. Wanted. A good _fucking_ show while she drank the rest of her _fucking_ dinner, is that so hard to ask for?

_Idiots._

 

**Antonia likes to tell people she’s the father of Lovina’s baby.**

Angelica has to pause when she spots a familiar face in the butcher’s shop early in the morning. She and Antonia went to school together, as girls, and they haven’t seen each other in so long, and they have so much to catch up on! She invites Antonia out to lunch at a café nearby, one Angelica has never been to but knows is good. There’s colorful artwork on the walls, and cute little candles on the center of the tables, and a menu she’s heard is to die for.

So much time has passed since they were ten and giggling about the boys next door! And that’s really what Angelica wants to know about, for all that she dutifully asks after Antonia’s job. At a hospital? There’s no surprise there; Antonia always did like patching broken things up. But what Angelica really wants to know is all the good gossip she hasn’t been able to hear since she moved to France, and the perfect way to segue into the topic is…

“Antonia your son is so cute!”

The little boy puffs out his chest, just like his father, Angelica bets, and Antonia grins. “He is! He really is! I tell everyone at work that he’s the cutest ever and once or twice they don’t believe me but when Alejandro visits they all change their minds because it’s true!”

“Just like his father,” Angelica laughs, without resentment.

“Almost exactly like his father, but more like his mother,” Antonia nods in… agreement? Antonia always was a little strange.

Angelica takes that as an agreement and plunges forward. “What _is_ Romano doing now? You’re married, aren’t you? Only,” and here Angelica has to draw conspiratorially close. It doesn’t fit the mood of the thing if she doesn’t, and oh, the little boy is drawing close too. He must not want to miss the conversation even if he doesn’t understand it. “My mother told me you two never got married.”

“What?”

“What?”

Angelica… doesn’t get why Antonia looks like she doesn’t get it. What is there not to get? “I only thought…” she deflates, “are you saying you _are_ married? Well. Congratulations.”

There goes _that_ scandal.

“We aren’t married yet, no.” Antonia concedes, with a smile to her child. “Not exactly.”

Or maybe that scandal isn’t quite over yet. Smelling blood in the water, Angelica spares a glance for the boy and hopes he’s not retaining any of this. “But Alejandro’s…”

“He’s the cutest!”

“But he’s not Romano’s son?”

Now Alejandro is listening intently, little hands cupped around little ears. Not that Angelica notices any of that. She hasn’t heard news this good since her neighbor in Nice ran around the neighborhood naked and screaming. She’s about to ask who little Alejandro’s father is after all, no wonder Romano wouldn’t marry Antonia after something like this it’s really so shocking, when Antonia fills in the gap for her.

“He is.”

Leave it to Antonia to fill in a gap with a gap.

“Then you couldn’t wait before you got married, I see now,” Angelica laughs. Not quite the story she was hoping for, because it’s such a common tale, but it’s something she can work with. “He’s the spitting image of his father.”

Then Antonia makes it all confusing again. “He looks more like his moth- oh, oh wait! You think...? Oh, Romano isn’t his father.”

Angelica’s brain stops. “How can he be Romano’s son, but Romano isn’t the father. Has… has Romano gotten one of _those_ operations?” Angelica will just die if he has. Just. Die.

“No,” Antonia frowns, “Romano isn’t Alejandro’s Mamma: Lovina is.”

Angelica can’t hold herself back ( _not that she has been_ ). “Wait— Alejandro is another woman’s son?! Romano cheated on you with another woman!? And… and she was cheating on him too with another man?!” This is confusing. This is more confusing than Antonia normally is. This is much more confusing than Antonia normally is, and it only gets more confusing when the woman from behind the register marches over to their table, unceremoniously picks Alejandro up from his seat and carries him off to the kitchen. Angelica can hear faint shouting from the back, although she can’t tell who it’s aimed at and some of it sounds suspiciously like—is that Romano’s voice?

“It’s not confusing at all,” Antonia folds her napkin in two, entirely unconcerned by the fact that the café owner just abducted her son who isn’t really her son because some stranger is his mother, and how does any of this work, _did Antonia steal him_ , “Lovina is Alejandro’s mother, and I’m Alejandro’s father.”

 

**Lovina initiates cuddle piles more than the rest of them do combined. If any of them bring that up she either pretends to start crying ( _Romano_ ), slaps them upside the head ( _Antonio_ ), or points at something across the room and runs ( _Antonia_ ).**

Lovina does not get lonely. Lovina gets cold. There is a difference. There is a huge difference. The biggest part of the huge enormous difference is that other people are natural heaters, men especially, so if Lovina likes to cover herself in people when she gets cold, that’s totally logical. And not pathetic. Or sad. Or overemotional at all, like it would have been if she covered herself with people when she was lonely. And anyone who says otherwise can go fucking buy her some strawberries holy fuck, Romano, what are you still doing here, I am _craving them_.

But don’t leave ‘til morning.

 

**Most cuddle piles end with Lovina and Romano on the bottom layer, clinging to each other and silently hiccup-sobbing on each other’s shoulders.**

Often Lovina will call Romano a pervert, even if he’s just returned from buying her things he didn’t actually have to buy her, or from making her things she didn’t even need. Often Lovina will bring up all the times Romano has had incredibly inconvenient boners because of her. Like the time he got hard on the bus, or the time he’d been staring at her ass in the grocery store and accidentally walked into the display of melons, which had hilariously caused a wave of destruction.

However, Romano will always have a counter-attack. There will always be that _one thing_ to top all the times Lovina has made Romano look like an idiot ( _not to mention all the times Romano has made himself look like an idiot all on his own_ ): Romano has never breached the sanctity of the cuddle piles, especially not during the ones where Lovina bawls her eyes out and Romano does not shed any tears at all, except for maybe a few manly ones. Romano has never betrayed Lovina’s trust during those times when she throws herself against him and sobs. Romano has never tried to make out with her in her time of emotional instability, or even grope her or anything.

Lovina, on the other hand…

 

**Antonio and Antonia think this is adorable.**

“Antonia?”

“Antonio?”

“I can’t stop shaking.”

“Me neither.”

“They’re just…”

“I know…”

“ **So cute.** ”

( _ **“WE CAN FUCKING HEAR YOU TWO.”**_ )

 

**Antonia steals food off of all their plates, even if she has to reach clear over the table to do so. They can’t get her to stop. They’ve stopped trying.**

Sometimes in the middle of a meal, Antonia will decide that she actually wanted the fish. Sometimes she’ll realize that she wanted more carrots than the chef gave her, and sometimes, when they are at home, she will decide that the pasta she has is perfectly delicious, and will take a forkful off of Antonio’s plate anyway. Antonia has always loved sampling around. She can’t exactly have everything, but she can certainly try everything, and the others don’t mind. That’s something she really loves about them; about Lovina, and Romano, and Antonio. She loves that she can love all three of them at once and they don’t mind.

Antonio’s mom brought something like that up, once, she shouted it over the phone in a conversation with him that Antonia maybe wasn’t supposed to hear. But she did, so she didn’t pretend that she hadn’t like Romano or Lovina might have. Instead, Antonia walked over to where Antonio sat in the café’s back storeroom, stole a bit of his lunch, kissed him, and hung up the phone for him.

Life is hard.

Nobody needs to add choices that don’t even really need to be choices on top of that.

 

**They get a very cheerful cat. The cat, Lovina and Romano swear, watches them when they have sex and it’s so fucking _creepy_.**

The cat has got to go. Romano can’t even shower in peace, because as soon as he reaches for a towel what he gets instead is a fist full of glossy grey fur because _that thing_ has taken to sitting right on the chair next to the shower and it stares at Romano’s crotch and make it stop.

Make.

It.

Stop.

The cat has got to go. Lovina can’t even get dressed in peace, because every time she tries, there’s that godawful cat staring at her tits like they’re the newest main stage attraction. Lovina loves those looks when they come from her partners; she doesn’t need them from a cat. Especially not when the cat hides in the closet every evening, and cats have night vision, right, they can see perfectly in it, can’t they? So when Lovina sees those little pinpricks of light reflecting out of the darkness when she’s trying to enjoy Antonio’s hand down her skirt then she’s not just being paranoid. There _is_ cause for alarm, dammit. Dammit!

Make.

It.

Stop.

But despite Romano and Lovina’s every attempt to lock it out of the house or chase it away, the cat stays.

 

**Romano likes to sit Lovina’s kid down on his knee, after wiping away all the kidgrime, and talk about how superior Alejand—— _Alessandro_ is, because he has superior parents even if Antonio and Antonia are dinkheads some of the time. Antonio most of the time.**

Come here.

Yes, yes, Alessà, sit on Babbo’s knee. No. No don’t _eat_ Babbo’s knee, Babbo likes these slacks—

Fuck, Antonio has me doing it too. Your Papá is a jackass, Alessà. Say it after me: Jacka—  
Holy shit, Lovina, why the fuck did you have to hit me on my fucking head you always do that, you fucking **harpy** — oh. Fuck, yeah, right. Alessà, don’t repeat any of that okay? Okay? Good. And if you do, tell people that Mamma taught you. Good.

Alessandro, one day you’re going to be a man. And when you are, stay away from women like your Mamma, because she’s… aggressive. Stick with a woman who won’t hit you so much; yes, it’s really hot, but she always goes for the spots she already knows are bruised and that’s not fff— fair! So. So stay away from the ones… like that. Because you’ll have all the women throwing themselves at you, yeah, because you have Vargas blood in your veins. And if anyone asks you if that’s a Spanish name, tell them to fuck a goat.

Yeah, yeah, I’m putting Alessà to bed, shut up already! Antonio, fuck off, he wants **me** to put him to bed! I’ll deal with you later, God in heaven— where was I? Oh. Yes.

You might have men around you too, you know, it’s because of the blood again. It’s… it’s not…

Make sure he’s not as stupid as your Papá? That’s all I want, Alessà, that’s it. As long as you keep your standards up then whenever somebody says something about something that doesn’t have anything to do with them, you know what to say?

“Fuck goat.”

…Good.

“Babbo?”

Time for bed, Alessà. The monsters won’t come because they’ll be too busy eating your Papá; remember that. Shhhh. Good night, _trottolino amoroso_.

 

**All of the OT4, save Antonia because she is serious about her paternity, maintain that their children have four parents.**

They all hate all the goddamned questions, maybe Antonia more than most because no one _ever_ takes her answers even if sometimes they are appeased by Lovina or Antonio or Romano, but what they hate the godfuckingdamned most are the stares. Those judging stares that try to divine the answers they believe are being willfully withheld. Those stares see the curls in Alejandro’s hair, and they look at Antonio’s head, and they think they know.

Those stares look at Celio’s upturned little nose, and they see Romano’s own sneer, and they think they know.

Those stares don’t know anything at all.

 

**Even though Romano and Lovina are the clingiest by far, Antonio is the one who hates being left out the most.**

When the coin goes heads, Antonia claps and Lovina sighs, and it looks like it’s Lovina’s turn to be a mother again. Technically it’s Romano’s turn, technically, but Romano is a lazyass and deferred his turn to the victor of the coin toss. Or the loser. He doesn’t keep track of who actually wants to get knocked up, just knows that he doesn’t.

Not that that’s physically possible anyway, as he’s literally told Antonia six thousand times. At the look on Antonio’s face, now Romano wonders whether somebody should have said something to _him_ too.

“Lovi, I can take Romano’s turn!”

She freezes, before pulling him to the side to undoubtedly say nicer things to than she would if Romano made a joke like that. Then again this is Antonio: who knows if it’s actually a joke. Not that Antonio’s _that_ much of an idiot, no matter what Romano tends to say. It’s just that Antonio, one, loves children. If it were up to Antonio they would be flooded with kids now, with no escape, and Alejandro would have more brothers and sisters than all the other kids at school combined.

It’s also that Antonio, two, doesn’t like being left behind and huh. Huh. Maybe with Lovina’s pregnancy, and then Antonia’s, and what with the way the both of them love to tease the fuck out of Romano, but they don’t tease Antonio nearly as much, maybe… maybe…

“Hey, bastard?”

They both turn, but Romano motions for Lovina to fuck off. She gives him the finger and he just knows this pregnancy is going to be ten times more painful for him than the last. Maybe he should start baking her things now and just freeze them for whenever she starts crying. Huh. She’d deserve it.

“Romano?” Antonio has this way of looking up at you with his goddamned big eyes, and Romano can’t even handle it. Fuck everything, why does he have to be so emotional.

“You can have my next turn,” Romano sighs, “you can have all my turns.”

Antonio breaks into a confused smile. “Really? You don’t want any?”

“Not in the slightest.”

They stare at each other until Romano breaks away, or tries to. Antonio catches him around the waist before Romano can get two steps away, and it’s one of those surprising moments of insight, where Antonio reveals that he’s been listening all along. “Lovina also promised you’d make me a pizza to make up for her taking your turn and for not skipping on to my turn or me having a turn.”

Or not.

 

**Whenever they are in separate rooms for the night, and Lovina feels lonely, she goes to Romano’s room. Not only is he strangely easy to wake up in the middle of the night, but if she gets a little weepy he will carry her to Antonio/a’s room and throw her onto the bed and go get the left over Antonio/a to make her feel better, dammit, oh God, stop crying.**

Only rarely does Antonio wake up to Romano shaking his shoulders and shouting his name. Usually he’s already awake for those parts, because even he hasn’t managed to master sleep-fucking and why would he want to anyway? Sometimes he’s still asleep, though, and even then it’s because Antonio still has sexy dreams, and when they feature Romano, they tend to feature Romano shouting at him. The only times when Antonio wakes up to Romano straddling his chest looking like the house might as well be on fire, Antonio knows it’s because Lovina’s had one of those dreams again. Lovina has these nightmares once every few weeks, and always when she sleeps alone. She doesn’t tell anyone what they’re about, and they never ask, although Antonio’s been tempted to more than once. He’s got this feeling, which he’ll never voice, that she doesn’t really have any nightmares at all and that the line is just something she tells Romano to make him run faster.

Antonio’s got this feeling Romano knows it.

Or maybe he doesn’t.

It doesn’t really matter. Antonio has nothing against piling into Antonia’s bed in the middle of the night, where Antonia is already stroking Lovina’s hair and holding her waist and singing something into her ear. He’s got nothing against Romano practically throwing him into the middle of the bed either. Romano has this thing… Romano believes in Antonio, and that means a lot. Romano believes that Antonio can _fix_ things, just by being there, and for that belief Antonio will do anything.

Even get up in the middle of the night.

Even neglect to tell Romano that he’s being entirely overdramatic, and a little foolish, and ridiculously adorable, and his hair is sticking up, and his hands are shaking a little, and that Antonio, sometimes, can see right through him.

 

**Lovina really likes fucking with Romano.**

“Lovi?”

She sniffles. “What?”

“You didn’t have a bad dream.”

It’s not a question.

“No.”

“Does Romano know that?”

She sniffles again. “…no.”

“Do you think you should tell him?”

“………no.”

 

**Romano does not do half as many worried crazy stupid things when Antonia cries. Lovina asked him about that, and why he’s such a dumbass when she’s obviously fucking with him, but the only answer she got was a wink from Antonia.**

Antonio’s pretty sure this is one of those things Lovina has to figure out for herself. If there were more lightsabers in this movie, Antonia would be Yoda and Antonio would be Lando Calrissian, except he would never give Lovina away to the Empire, but he can’t tell her everything she needs to know either. She has to figure it out on her own. That’s what the Hero’s Journey Cycle is about. She can’t make it to the second moon of Endor without getting her robot hand first. There’s an order to these kind of things; Antonio knows that much.

 

**Romano was a little bit secretly jealous of Antonio, when they first acquired him, because after growing up with Antonia Romano had always figured. Well. That what they had was. Well. That died when Antonio put his hand down Romano’s pants the next day.**

His first long night at the university, Romano cannot sleep. He tosses and turns in his too-narrow bed, and wonders what’s going to happen now. It’s one thing to have a long distance relationship with a girl who is beautiful and probably too good for you. It’s another to have her make friends with a guy who is hot and probably better than you, not that you’d say that or let him think that ever. It’s a third thing entirely to finally be around them in person and to see… that they… that maybe _they_ are a better they than you and your girl are. Day two at the university is just a ‘find out where everything is’ day, so it’s okay that Romano hasn’t slept.

Perfectly okay.

Everything is okay.

His girlfriend and his kind-of-sort-of-long-distance-never-met-in-person-before-but-we’re-clicking-more-than-I’ve-ever-clicked-with-anyone-else friend just proposed a threeway relationship to Romano yesterday, and everything is okay.

They want him to share Antonia, the girl he’s been stupid about since before he knew being stupid about girls was a thing, and everything is okay.

…nothing is okay.

Not until they make him meet them at Antonio’s room, and Antonio greets him with tongue and a hand down his pants while Antonia is in the bathroom down the hall, and Romano realizes for the first time that they hadn’t asked him to share Antonia yesterday.

They’d asked to share _him_. Sort of.

And Antonia.

And _Antonio_.

At the same time.

Suddenly, and this might be Romano’s dick talking but he doesn’t think it’s that entirely, everything is okay again.

 

**Antonio, for his part, felt a little nervous when they were first inviting Lovina into their relationship because he could tell how much Antonia and Romano liked her and he liked her too and he just wanted her to like all of them but she didn’t seem like she really liked any of them and he would hate it if she switched rooms or stopped talking to them and what if—**

… and I don’t want her to feel like she’s intruding even though I don’t think she’ll feel that way at all because she’s seen us so she knows there’s nothing to intrude on and she’s seen the two of you the most so she knows you the best and first impressions are really important and the one she has of me is a homewrecker because of that time she saw me with you, Roma, before she knew about you and me and Antonia and she thought I was helping you cheat on Antonia when I would never do that ever because that would hurt Antonia and I would never do that because I love her, and it would also hurt you and I never want to hurt you because I love you too and it would hurt me as well and I don’t want to hurt myself but I don’t know if Lovina knows this yet because she doesn’t know me and what if she doesn’t like me and that’s why she says no, what if she says no, what are we going to do then, I don’t want her to say that because I like her a lot but if she…

 

**To remedy these fears he also stuck his hand down her pants. It worked out.**

First, Lovina decked him.

That’s not entirely right. First Lovina jumped a little. Of all the things she expected after that dinner, Antonio feeling her up was not number one. _Antonia_ , maybe, but not Antonio. He didn’t strike her as the type. Romano struck her as the type, because Romano was a pervert, and also an asshole, and apparently to him being an asshole equated with heavy flirtation. What was he, five?

Anyway.

Then, Lovina slapped him. He hadn’t even asked, and no way was Lovina going to jump into a relationship where everybody thought she was just that easy.

Then, Lovina grabbed his shirt collar and insulted him. She insulted the way he dressed and that stupid look on his face, and how tall he was.

Then, she kissed him.

 _Then_ she decked him.

 

**Sometimes Antonio tries to reproduce Lovina’s fake tears to see if Romano will do things for him. It has only worked twice.**

The first time was the easiest because Romano wasn’t expecting them. Antonio hedged his bets, thought the saddest thoughts he could, and hoped he could at least get dinner out of this, or maybe some excellent cuddles afterwards if he was lucky. It was a minor dream of his to get Romano to agree to cuddles without any cursing. No name-calling, no derogatory remarks about Antonio’s intelligence. Just some good old-fashioned squirming around on a bed with their clothes on. Antonio was always a man of simple pleasures.

He chose a night when Lovina and Antonia were out anyway, Antonia working and Lovina stuck at a cousin’s wedding she couldn’t get out of and hadn’t wanted to subject the rest of them to, and imagined what life would be like if everyone left him and his whole family died and the sun exploded and no one believed in true love anymore. Romano found Antonio bawling on the second floor landing and flipped his shit. It was one thing to see Antonio shedding a tear or two at a telenovela, but Romano had never actually seen Antonio cry before. Not like this.

That night Antonio got everything he’d hoped for, with the addition of Romano crying too. He had to give a hurried explanation at midnight, when the tears didn’t stop, that he wasn’t actually sad, he’d just figured out how to trick Romano like Lovina did and wasn’t it exciting? After that Antonio also got an excellent bruise on his left hip, but, later on, he figured he deserved that a little bit. Just because Lovina does something doesn’t make it right, even if it is easy and fun and something Antonio wishes worked a little bit more often for him.

The second time was a little bit strange, and no one believes Antonio when he says it counts as a time at all. Sure, maybe he’d been in a bit of an accident. Maybe he’d had to have a trip to the emergency room to get stitches, and maybe they’d kept him overnight for observation. No matter what anyone says, Antonio’s not the kind of person to cry about any of that; he just wanted Romano to get him ice cream from the hospital canteen. That was all.

What he got was fluffed pillows and worried glances and extra juice at dinner and Romano crying in the hallway and snapping at the nurses, not Antonia but some of her friends, and some really lengthy hand-holding that Romano didn’t stop even after Lovina taunted him by saying that it was incredibly gay.

And the ice cream.

Even if nobody believes that that time counts, Antonio thinks that it’s his favorite.

**Author's Note:**

> And there they are. I made most of the headcanons up on the spot because I don’t tend to ruminate on headcanons for long periods of time. I either figure out answers to questions or I end up writing a fic around an idea. The few that I had in mind before are:
> 
> \- spaincat is always watching  
> \- Antonia is totally the father of Lovina’s baby ( _originally zike’s_ )  
> \- Lovina likes fucking with Romano  
> \- in OT4verse Romano refuses to accept that Kid#1 has a Spanish name, and so almost always calls him by the Italian equivalent instead. This confuses the poor kid to the degree where he’s not quite sure what his actual name is. For years.  
> \- Romano doesn’t hate children; he hates _other people’s_ children
> 
>  
> 
> The few that I have after are:  
> \- Romano teaches his kids/kidcitizens if he’s a nation to say ‘go fuck a goat’ to their enemies. Or to people they just don’t like. Or to Spain. Or to Germany. ~~Or to Veneziano.~~  
>  \- Romano has a lot of revelations at the halfway point between his house and the store  
> \- Most of these revelations go along the lines of ‘FUCK WHAT AM I DOING’  
> \- Even Antonio knows Lovina’s just fucking with Romano
> 
>  
> 
> trottolino amoroso: Italian for ‘beloved little spinning top’, according to the internet. So.
> 
> Alessà: an affectionate form for Alessandro. Also according to the internet.


End file.
